What is the end of the solar system? The Death Star 6,500 light-years away gives the answer. What should humans do?

As a yellow dwarf star, the final outcome of the sun is also related to the fate of the solar system. Over the years, scientists have used various modeling and analysis in the hope of predicting the end of the solar system in advance. Until recently, a dead star appeared in front of scientists 6,500 light-years away from the earth. It looked like It's the solar system of the future, hinting at our ending.

From the perspective of solar evolution, the remaining life of the sun is about 5-7 billion years. After that, the sun will eventually collapse into a white dwarf after experiencing the red giant stage. This also declares the official end of the solar system.

However, there are many planets, satellites and other celestial bodies around the sun. What is the fate of each celestial body in the solar system? Taking the earth as an example, if humans have always lived on the earth, or if we can never leave the solar system, when the sun becomes a white dwarf, will we still have the possibility of living?

Obviously, these questions are related to the ultimate fate of mankind. For many years, scientists have been hoping to find a reference white dwarf star system in the universe to see if there are still surviving stars around it. A planet, but because the planet itself does not emit light, it is seen because it refracts the light of the star, or it is a periodic shadow that appears when passing through the surface of the star.

Therefore, it is not easy to discover the existence of exoplanets around white dwarfs. Until some time ago, scientists discovered a planet similar to Jupiter 6,500 light-years away. A planet that orbits a white dwarf star and is a survivor of a star system that has come to an end.

Research believes that this Jupiter-like exoplanet should have been very far away from the star, and is not a "hot Jupiter" that is more common in the universe, because if it approached the star at a close distance, Then the moment the star expands and becomes a red giant, it will be swallowed up by the star.

This also means that the star system where this exoplanet was originally located should be similar to the solar system, and its original orbit should be similar to the distance between Jupiter and the sun. .

According to calculations, the distance between this exoplanet and the white dwarf star is now about half the distance between Jupiter and the sun. This also means that when the sun enters the red giant stage, it begins to expand rapidly. time, then, in addition to Mercury and Venus, which will be 100% swallowed, the Earth, Mars, as well as the satellites around Jupiter and other more distant celestial bodies in the solar system may survive.

In past modeling analyses, researchers believed that after the sun expands and its radius extends outward, it may reach the Earth’s current orbit. This also means that even if the Earth is not swallowed up, , the earth will also become a planet very close to a white dwarf.

By studying this white dwarf star system 6,500 light-years away, some scientists speculate that if there are rocky planets, satellites, or asteroids around the white dwarf close enough to it, then , although the light of the white dwarf star is extremely dim, the energy it releases can still provide sufficient life support for life on these celestial bodies.

Of course, the minimum requirement for this distance also has a premise, that is, the distance between these celestial bodies and the white dwarf must be within 10% of the current distance between Mercury and the sun.

So, as long as the earth is not swallowed up, and before that, we have the ability to leave the earth and immigrate to Mars, or some of the moons around Jupiter.

Then, humans still have a way to survive after the sun turns into a white dwarf and the solar system reaches the end of its evolution. And judging from the evolution time of white dwarfs, billions of people can still exist in the solar system. Years long.

It seems that if humans have a way to leave the earth, we will have a way to continue our lives in the universe. However, in fact it is not as easy as we think.

Because one of the keys to the longevity of human civilization is that humans must leave the solar system and have the ability to immigrate to other star systems before each star system undergoes changes. Otherwise, when the white dwarf leaves, By the end, we're still at a dead end.

Research believes that the ultimate fate of a white dwarf is to become a black dwarf, which is also the true final stage in the evolution of life for small and medium-mass stars like the sun.

After becoming a black dwarf, it will no longer be able to produce energy radiation. If no new stars are born in the universe, and all small and medium-mass stars become black dwarfs, then, that is Means the death of the universe.

However, black dwarfs are a hypothetical celestial body. Currently, there are no discoveries of black dwarfs in the universe. Because research believes that it takes about 200 trillion years for a small and medium-mass star to turn into a black dwarf, but the current age of the universe is only 13.77 billion years old.

This also means that there are no black dwarfs in the universe yet. Therefore, what is the ultimate fate of white dwarfs and the universe will require a long period of cosmic evolution to give the answer. Can humans wait until That day?